In The News

Photographer whose work for the Beatles caused controversy passes away

Photographer whose work for the Beatles caused controversy passes away

THE photographer Robert Whitaker, whose work with the Beatles caused controversy, has passed away. He was 71.

Mr. Whitaker had spent two years as the group’s in-house photographer in the mid-1960s. He had been invited to take up the position after meeting the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, during the group’s tour of Australia.

At the time Mr. Whitaker had been working as a photographer in Melbourne after emigrating there from England.

It was Mr. Whitaker’s bent for surrealism which had caught Epstein’s attention.

One of his memorable shots while with the Beatles was to get John Lennon to pose with a dandelion over one eye.

But it was his work for the group’s Yesterday and Today album (see below) which was to cause controversy in the United States.

He had persuaded the fab four to don white coats and be photographed with pieces of raw meat and decapitated children’s dolls for the album cover.

When the album was released in the US it caused a storm of protest which resulted in it being withdrawn. It was subsequently re-released with a less striking photo of the group. Copies of the original album can today fetch large sums of money.

After his time with the Beatles, Mr. Whitaker went on to work in fashion before  becoming a war photographer — covering such conflicts as the Arab-Israeli War in 1967 and Vietnam, where he was injured in a grenade blast.

He also produced several books including The Unseen Beatles (1991) and In the Company of Dali (2007), which featured his friend Salvador Dali.

To view the cover photograph of the Beatles’ album Yesterday and Today and to hear John Lennon discuss the controversy surrounding it click here.

 

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